Path 2

Path 2

How Can They Save The Spider-Man Musical?

September 8, 2009

A blockbuster franchise. A Broadway visionary at the helm. (Julie Taymor). Two of the best known songwriters of our time. (Bono and The Edge). How could it fail? And yet, SpiderMan: Turn Off The Dark recently pulled the plug–temporarily, mind you–as the reported $45 million production searched for other funds to back its weirdly timed grandeur.

Some construction at the theater has reportedly resumed and Bono himself is supposedly scaring up piles of dough, but the show’s ultimate outcome is still as uncertain as that horrible title. So how should they turn off the dark and save this thing?

*Scale it down and move it to the next Fringe Festival?

*Remove any mention of a superhero, since musicals about that sort of thing never seem to fly?

*Get some of the extras over at Lion King to walk over a few blocks and play spiders on the cheap?

*Get old ladies to overinvest in the show and open it as a Springtime For Hitler-type bomb that’ll make lots of revenue–unless it succeeds as a satire?